Henry Heth

Henry Heth (16 December 1825-27 September 1899) was a Major-General in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Heth was originally a soldier in the US Army, publishing the first manual for marksmen in 1858. As a commander in the Confederate States, he was noted for his role in the battles of Chambersburg Pike and Herr's Ridge in the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Biography
Heth (pronounced "Heath") was born in the town of Black Heath, Virginia, and was the cousin of George Pickett. Born to a coal business family that was descended from an older Henry Heth who had served in the American Revolutionary War, Heth attended West Point in 1847 and was one of the few men who Robert E. Lee referred to by his first name. He was made Captain in the 10th US Infantry Regiment in 1855 and fought the Lakota Sioux tribe in the Battle of Ash Hollow during the Plains Indian Wars and in 1858 he created the first manual for marksmen.

After the battle of Fort Sumter began the American Civil War in April 1861, Heth resigned from the US Army to join the Confederate States, to whom his home state of Virginia had pledged allegiance. In 1862 he served in Kentucky and Tennessee and was sent by Edmund Kirby Smith to make a demonstration of military might in front of the Northern city of Cinncinnati, but only a few skirmishes occurred and his march was useless. In March 1863 Heth was transferred to Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and started the Battle of Gettysburg in a skirmish with John Buford's Union cavalrymen in the Battle of Chambersburg Pike on July 1, 1863. Afterward, he proceeded to drive Buford's men from the road and Herr's Ridge and was later joined by the full huge Confederate army, who met the full Union Army at the town of Gettysburg. Heth was shot in the head at the Battle of Cemetery Ridge; his hat was stuffed full of paper to make it fit on his head, so it deflected the shot, but it left Heth unconscious. He recovered to lead his men in the minor engagements in fall of 1863 during the retreat back to Virginia and took part in the Overland Campaign of 1864. Heth took command of Ambrose P. Hill's III Corps after he was killed in action in the Battle of Petersburg, but at the Battle of Sutherland's Station his forces were pushed back and he retreated to join Lee at Appomattox Station in April in time to surrender to Ulysses S. Grant and Joshua Chamberlain, the latter of which had fought him at Gettysburg.

After the war, Heth served as an insurance businessman, surveyor, and later a member of the Office of Indian Affairs. When he died, he was buried in Hollywood Cemetery, the "Arlington of the Confederacy", in his home state of Virginia.